Visit a School on the Cuyuni

From now on I shall be writing the blog with primary school children in mind. Many schools study the rainforest and there are plnty of excellent books and videos on the subject but it is not common to read a blog from someone who lives on the edge of the greatest unexplored rainforest on the planet and who works with schools in the rainforest.I welcome questions and comments particularly children from Brighton schools and schools in East Sussex and, most particularly to start with, from the pupils in Year 5 at Balfour Junior School because Mrs Parfitt has contacted me directly.
Yesterday I visited an Amerindian school in the rainforest on the banks of the Cuyuni River. I live in Bartica in Guyana which is 45 miles down the Essequibo river (the 3rd largest river in South America). That means that it is a big river!. Bartica is on a peninsula for when the Essequibo reaches Bartica it separates first into the Mazaruni river and then it too separates into the Cuyuni river. Look it up on Google Earth. The school, Batavia Primary School is on the left bank of the Cuyuni a couple of miles up river. The river attracts many gold mining dredges which work around the clock sucking up the sand ,sifting it so that they can extract the gold. These operations do cause damage to the river because they use mercury in the process . However it is the land mining that causes the greatest damage,so use Google to view videos of 'Goldmining in Guyana' to find out more.
Most the pupils at the 79 strong school come by boat , some in their own canoes and they are all Amerindians. I am there today to discuss putting in a solar panel for electric lighting and to see if we can improve the library. Only about half can read and this is my main job - to improve literacy. You can find out about the history of the 9 tribes of Amerindians that live in Guyana on the interet. Many of the children's fathers mine in the forest but some remain to run boats up and down the river or farm in the surrounding area.

On the way back to Bartica we ran into a heavy rain storm and because the river Essequibo is about 2 miles wide around Bartica the water was very choppy. Still we dried up quickly because the temperature was 35 degrees Centigrade and it rains at least once a day evry day!